There’s nothing like a first-person account from a touring bicyclist to add drama to the closure of the North Cascades Highway this past weekend.

Bekah Gordon wrote one at InventureTime.com, telling how she and her three companions slogged through mud and running water, hefted their loaded touring bikes over guardrails, then escaped an oncoming hailstorm …

“We were completely different backgrounds — she’s a liberal Seattle Democrat — but we got along famously. We didn’t talk politics — when you’re trying to survive the wilderness, politics is low on the list.”

Maybe members of Congress should take a bicycle tour — a very long bicycle tour — together.